Chapter 14 - The End

And as I sat there staring at Fenton Radley holding a gun to my head,  a thousand thoughts started running through mine. I couldn’t understand it.  How could he do this, how could this man betray me, betray his own family like this? Joe might be dead, and we could be sitting there waiting for a murderer to return, waiting to catch a murderer.

Sam was trying to talk to his son, trying to calm him down, but it wasn’t doing much good, Fenton’s hands were shaking, and I began to wonder if he would pull the trigger of the gun by accident, he was so pale; and his eyes looked wild, as if all reason had left him. He looked…well….crazy.

“Fenton, this is ridiculous, come on now, this is Frank, one of your oldest friends; and Fenton, your godfather. You don’t want to hurt them; you don’t want to hurt any of us. Look at all these people.”

Sam gestured towards where Tony, Biff, Phil, Chet, Callie and Vanessa were standing.

 “You know all these people, Fenton, they are friends. Come on, son, please, put down the gun.”

 “Get back, just get back, Dad; I’ll kill him, I swear I will.  I’ll kill him and I’ll kill Joe and anyone else that I want.”  Fenton Radley’s hands were shaking violently as he pushed the barrel of the shotgun even closer to Frank’s forehead, so that it was digging into the flesh.

I could see that they were all scared; Dad, Sam, the guys, Callie, Ness , they knew as well as I did that Fenton Radley was out of control. But I had to try, someone had to keep trying. He said that he would kill Joe, which meant that he might be alive. So I began talking.  

“Look,” Frank began, “Look, just tell us where Joe is, huh?  Please, I swear, I just want to go get my brother, that’s all

Unknown to him, tears had started to form in Frank Hardy’s eyes.

“Huh, look at you, crying, crying for your brother,” Fenton sneered, and then turned slightly so that he was facing his father. “No one ever cried for me Dad, did they? Too busy trying to turn me into a Hardy boy, weren’t you Dad? Too busy to care that I didn’t want to be like them, that I was different?”

Sam Radley paled considerably; the venom in his only child’s voice surprised him, the harsh words stung.

“Would you really do this, Fenton, would you?” Fenton Hardy’s words were calm, almost soft; he appealed to the boy, to this namesake of his, this younger version of his oldest friend.

“Would you knowingly take both my sons away from me, just to get back at your father? I didn’t do anything Fenton, remember that, and neither did Frank, nor Joe. We can’t help who we are.”

Fenton’s grip on the gun loosened ever so slightly, and he pointed it away from Frank directly and towards the group in general. He was thinking about what Fenton had said.

There was silence in the room for a moment, before Frank spoke up again.

 “Dad’s right Fenton, you and I were pals, you used to beat me at cards and I kicked your ass in chess, remember? And you and I and Joe, we would take our bikes and cycle for miles and miles out of Bayport and into the woods, just to find the best trees to climb, and you would always climb the furthest, wouldn’t you?

“We were friends Fenton, you and Joe and I; we made plans together, remember, and we were all going to be detectives together when we grew up, and become rich and famous.”

But Frank had said the wrong thing. Radley raised his hand again and once more fixed the barrel of the gun on Frank Hardy’s head.

“WE were going to be DETECTIVES….Well, looks like you and Joe fulfilled your every desire then, doesn’t it? The good little sons, the model students, the famous teen detectives, the college graduates, the jocks. WHY SHOULD YOU GET EVERYTHING WHEN I HAVE NOTHING?”

“Son, please, talk to me.”  Sam Radley moved forward slightly, his hands raised in the air.

“No! Dad, I’m sick of talking….I want them to go away, both of them….Maybe then you’ll love me for who I am.  IT’S ALL YOUR FAULT DAD, IT’S ALL YOUR FAULT!”

 Fenton Radley’s voice had gotten louder and louder as he spoke, and his hand tightened on the gun’s trigger mechanism.

I thought he was going to kill me, I really did, and I remember shutting my eyes and waiting for the sound of the gunshot.

And then it came, BANG!! The gun went off.

For a second I thought I was dead, but then I opened my eyes and saw that everyone was looking at Fenton and not at me.  And then I looked down and saw him lying on the ground beside me moaning quietly; his face was pale and sweating, and blood was seeping out of a wound in his right shoulder.

And when I looked over I could see my father slowly lay his gun on the table. His hands were shaking.

“T…thanks, Dad.” It was all that I could manage to say.

“Go and get your brother, Frank.”

So I went. I drove faster than I ever have before or since, I broke every speed sign and red light for 20 miles, and every minute that went by I could just imagine Joe lying in that room dying, all alone.

Phil was in the passenger seat.  I think he had been chosen because everyone figured he would be the only one to keep me calm during the drive, but he never said a word.  I think he knew that I couldn’t be calm or rational anymore, I just had to find Joe.

When we eventually got to that beat-up old farm, I was almost in a state of panic, tearing through first the old farmhouse, and then the barns, searching for him. And in the cellar in the barn at the farthest corner of the farm, I found him.

At first I thought that he was dead; he was lying there so still. His eyes were sunken back into his head, and he was so pale, just lying there in that miserable concrete room propped up against one wall.

His hands weren’t even tied. They had been at one time, I could see the red marks on his wrists; but Fenton had obviously untied him, knowing full well that he didn’t have the strength to move, or to escape.

Mad? The man wasn’t mad, he was evil. How could anyone sit and look at someone die like this in front of their eyes? How?

“Joe?”

There was no response. I think I was afraid to touch him at first, it seemed like he might disintegrate before my eyes, but then I saw his lips move, and I knelt down in front of him and put my arms around him. I was almost afraid to hug him, but I had to let him know that I was there, and that he was safe.

"I’m here Joe, I won’t let you go again.  I promise."

 

The Hardy Boys belong to Simon and Schuster and the Stratemeyer Foundation. The Hardy Boys Fan Fiction authors of the Hardy Detective Agency have just borrowed them for an adventure or two. The authors promise to put the boys back when they are done with them. The authors do claim copyright to the original characters in this story. Please do not borrow original characters without express permission of the authors.